Amor et Labor

DIY Pedal Board

2010-04-18T19:47:00.004-04:00

Accomplished this weekend - DIY pedal board. I've already been mocked by teenagers who referred to it as "ghetto." I can't exactly argue.

ONE TEXT FILE TO RULE THEM ALL

2010-03-31T19:38:00.010-04:00

Wow, it's been a year since I posted here and the only reason that I'm breaking my silent streak (other social media being much more interactive and fun) is that I am bursting with geeky pride over completing My System which I affectionately refer to as One Text File to Rule Them All.

I got the idea of working from a Big Ass Text File from this post on 43 folders. Being forced to use WordPerfect at work increased my desire to have most of my stuff in an almost completely incorruptible format, namely the humble plaintext txt or flat file as it is sometimes called.

Development

I used AutoHotKey to create a way to quickly input data from any of my computers, because the script and the text file (to rule them all) both reside in my DropBox folder. Run the script and it waits of me to press the key combination of Control+Spacebar which brings up this interface:

Whatever I type can be categorized into my stream-of-consciousness journal, placed in my knowledge database (bookmarks, quotes, etc), added to my wish list (book titles, software), added to my Do or Now lists (to do and next actions respectively), included in my list of half-baked ideas or saved to the text file and uploaded to Twitter automatically (the number at the bottom of the dialog counts your letters for tweeting purposes). When this window is up, you can use Ctrl+First letter shortcuts. I also have hotkeys set up to bring up each of these lists separately (Win+Letter) which can be accessed even if the dialog is not active.

To inactivate an item one must only open any of the lists and press Win+R (for remove). The text file will still contain this item, but it won't be sent to the sublists. I also put in a hotkey (Win+x) which clips whatever you have highlighted directly to the txt file with a datestamp and #clipped hashtag.

Now, no self-respecting programmer would be proud of this. It's a good thing that I am not a programmer and also possess no self respect.

Script provided below requires AutoHotKey and httpQUERY.ahk (in the same folder). Unless you give me your twitter username and password and I can create you a .exe - how much do you trust me?

; ONE TEXT FILE TO RULE THEM ALL

;

; Install - place httpQUERY.ahk in the same folder with this script. The ONE TEXT

FILE TO RULE THEM ALL

; and the temporary sub files will be in the same folder. Runs great in your

MyDropBox folder.

;

; Instructions:

; Ctrl-Space opens dialog

; Win-Space opens the One Text File

; Win-x copies (appends) to the one text file without switching screens (adds

#clipped hashtag)

; KEY below

;® Do Items Win+d opens a file of Do items

;¤ Now Items Win+n

;§ Wish Items Win+w

;© Half-Baked Items Win+h

;¶ Knowledge Items Win+k

;¦ Journal Item Win+j

;« Calendar Item Win+c

;µ Tweet Item Win+t

;¥ (reserved for future use)

;

; To inactivate (but not delete it from your OTF, highlight the datestamp and

press Win+r (for remove)

;

; Code to post to twitter from agdurrette:

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45459&highlight=twitter

#NoEnv

#Persistent

#SingleInstance, Force

SendMode Input

SetTitleMatchMode 2

SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%

#include %A_ScriptDir%\httpQuery.ahk

Gui, Add, Edit, x6 y10 w310 h20 gUpdateChar vData ,

Gui, Add, Button, x6 y40 w70 h30 default, &Journal

Gui, Add, Button, x6 y80 w70 h30, &Knowledge

Gui, Add, Button, x86 y40 w70 h30, &Calendar

Gui, Add, Button, x86 y80 w70 h30, &Tweet

Gui, Add, Button, x166 y40 w70 h30, &Wish

Gui, Add, Button, x166 y80 w70 h30, &HalfBaked

Gui, Add, Button, x246 y40 w70 h30, &Do

Gui, Add, Button, x246 y80 w70 h30, &Now

Gui, Add, Text, x6 y120 w200 h20 vCounter,

;This just provides a counter in the GUI of how many characters you have written

(useful for Twitter posts)

UpdateChar:

GuiControlGet, Status,, Data

stringlen cnt, Status

GuiControl Text, Counter, %cnt%

Return

;This posts a tweet to Twitter - change "username" and "password" to yours

Post:

{

URL := "http://username:password@twitter.com/statuses/update.xml?"

POSTdata := "status="status

httpQUERY(buffer:="",URL,POSTdata)

}

Return

^Space::

GuiControl,,Data,

Gui, Show,,One Text File to Rule Them All

Sleep, 50

ControlFocus, Edit1, OTFTRTA

Return

#Space::

Run OTFTRTA.txt

ControlFocus,,OTFTRTA

Sleep, 500

Send ^{End}

Return

; Used this for a moment to sumbit True to SQL

;#z::

;Send, True`n

;Return

;Destroys the old versions of the organized text output files and recreates them

with the most recent data

;I could do this by reading in variables, but this is easier to read and change in

the future

Refreshlists:

FileDelete, anything.txt

FileDelete, Do.txt

FileDelete, Now.txt

FileDelete, Journal.txt

FileDelete, Wish.txt

FileDelete, Calendar.txt

FileDelete, HalfBaked.txt

FileDelete, Knowledge.txt

FileDelete, Tweet.txt

FileDelete, Clipped.txt

;Make copies of the first one of these to create separate files for anything you

want with a hashtag

Loop, read, OTFTRTA.txt, anything.txt

{

IfInString, A_LoopReadLine, #anything, FileAppend, %A_LoopReadLine%`n

}

Loop, read, OTFTRTA.txt, clipped.txt

{

IfInString, A_LoopReadLine, #clipped, FileAppend, %A_LoopReadLine%`n

}

Loop, read, OTFTRTA.txt, Do.txt

{

IfInString, A_LoopReadLine, ®, FileAppend, %A_LoopReadLine%`n

}

Loop, read, OTFTRTA.txt, Now.txt

{

IfInString, A_LoopReadLine, ¤, FileAppend, %A_LoopReadLine%`n

}

Loop, read, OTFTRTA.txt, Journal.txt

{

IfInString, A_LoopReadLine, ¦, FileAppend, %A_LoopReadLine%`n

}

Loop, read, OTFTRTA.txt, Knowledge.txt

{

IfInString, A_LoopReadLine, ¶, FileAppend, %A_LoopReadLine%`n

}

Loop, read, OTFTRTA.txt, Calendar.txt

{

IfInString, A_LoopReadLine, «, FileAppend, %A_LoopReadLine%`n

}

Loop, read, OTFTRTA.txt, Tweet.txt

{

IfInString, A_LoopReadLine, µ, FileAppend, %A_LoopReadLine%`n

}

Loop, read, OTFTRTA.txt, Wish.txt

{

IfInString, A_LoopReadLine, §, FileAppend, %A_LoopReadLine%`n

}

Loop, read, OTFTRTA.txt, HalfBaked.txt

{

IfInString, A_LoopReadLine, ©, FileAppend, %A_LoopReadLine%`n

}

Return

;This part clips what is highlighted to the OTFTRTA without changing screens. You

get a wee little beep

;as evidence that it worked.

#x::

clipboard=

Send, ^c

ClipWait, 2

if ErrorLevel

{

MsgBox, The attempt to copy text onto the clipboard failed.

return

}

fileappend ¦ %clipboard% %CurrentDateTime% #clipped`n, OTFTRTA.txt

SoundBeep 3000, 5

Gosub, Refreshlists

return

ButtonDo:

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, ® %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

ButtonCalendar:

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, « %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

ButtonWish:

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, § %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

ButtonNow:

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, ¤ %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

ButtonKnowledge:

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, * %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

ButtonTweet:

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, µ %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gosub, Post

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

ButtonHalfBaked:

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, ¶ %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

ButtonJournal:

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, ¦ %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

#w::

Run Wish.txt

ControlFocus,,Wish

Sleep, 500

Send ^{End}

Return

#d::

Run Do.txt

ControlFocus,,do

Sleep, 500

Send ^{End}

Return

#j::

Run journal.txt

ControlFocus,,Journal

Sleep, 500

Send ^{End}

Return

#n::

Run now.txt

ControlFocus,,Now

Sleep, 500

Send ^{End}

Return

#t::

Run tweet.txt

ControlFocus,,Tweet

Sleep, 500

Send ^{End}

Return

#c::

Run calendar.txt

ControlFocus,,Calendar

Sleep, 500

Send ^{End}

Return

#h::

Run halfbaked.txt

ControlFocus,,HalfBaked

Sleep, 500

Send ^{End}

Return

#k::

Run knowledge.txt

ControlFocus,,Knowledge

Sleep, 500

Send ^{End}

Return

#r::

Gosub, MakeOld

Return

MakeOld:

send ^c

Loop, read, OTFTRTA.txt, MyTempFile.txt ; designate an output file

{

temp := ( A_Index = 1 ? "" : "`n" ) . A_LoopReadLine

IfInString, temp, %clipboard%

{

stringreplace,temp,temp,®,OldDo

stringreplace,temp,temp,¤,OldNow

stringreplace,temp,temp,§,OldWish

stringreplace,temp,temp,©,OldHalf

stringreplace,temp,temp,«,OldCal

stringreplace,temp,temp,¶,OldKnow

stringreplace,temp,temp,¦,OldJournal

stringreplace,temp,temp,µ,OldTweet

}

FileAppend, %temp%

}

FileMove, MyTempFile.txt, OTFTRTA.txt, 1 ; overwrite the source file.

Gosub, refreshlists

return

;The following submit based on keystrokes (only if the OTFTRTA is open) with the

appropriate headers

#IfWinActive OTFTRTA ahk_class AutoHotkeyGUI

^d::

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, ® %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

#IfWinActive OTFTRTA ahk_class AutoHotkeyGUI

^n::

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, ¤ %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

#IfWinActive OTFTRTA ahk_class AutoHotkeyGUI

^w::

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, § %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

#IfWinActive OTFTRTA ahk_class AutoHotkeyGUI

^h::

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, © %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

#IfWinActive OTFTRTA ahk_class AutoHotkeyGUI

^k::

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, ¶ %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

#IfWinActive OTFTRTA ahk_class AutoHotkeyGUI

^j::

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, ¦ %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

#IfWinActive OTFTRTA ahk_class AutoHotkeyGUI

^c::

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, « %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

#IfWinActive OTFTRTA ahk_class AutoHotkeyGUI

^t::

FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyyMMddHHmmss

Gui, Submit

FileAppend, µ %data% %CurrentDateTime%`n, OTFTRTA.txt

Gosub, Post

Gui, Hide

Gosub, Refreshlists

Return

#IfWinActive OTFTRTA ahk_class AutoHotkeyGUI

Escape::

Gui, Hide

Return

on Twitter

2008-12-03T21:29:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking about the medium of Twitter recently and this post on Jollyblogger got me thinking even more. Some folks are criticizing Twitter as the quintessential narcissistic tool, and I can certainly see the point there. Twitter can be just one more way to draw attention to the minute, insignificant details of my life, since the universe ceases to exist when I fall asleep and begins anew when I regain consciousness. I think that there are a couple of good things about Twitter. As to my existing friendships, sometimes there is nothing that seems email worthy to write to them, despite the fact that I value their friendship and love them. I do have a very strong desire to reclaim the art of the handwritten letter, but that's a different post entirely. For these friendships, the psychological benefit for me of Twitter is that it moves my friends out of the abstract and into the present, despite a separation by place. Especially when my friends tell me that they are thinking about something, they don't have to even tell me what they conclude, it provides me with data about their experience. I know that my friends exist, but I have to project on them thoughts and feelings, and especially if I haven't seen them in a while, this is generated by my previous experience of them, with little new data. I think a phrase like, "getting the kids out of the bath" does more to keep my connected to a friend than a thousand email forwards or even an abstractly written theological/philosophical exchange.

I agree with the Jollyblogger that the building blocks of relationships are the small phrases of everyday enjoyment uttered from one friend to the other. I think that reciprocity is the key here, though. I try to use my "@"s and "d"s regularly with all of my friends, because something as short as "that's neat" or "I wish I had some hot chocolate right now as well" goes a long way to building the relationship on both sides. Yeah, Twitter is probably a symptom of our ever-decreasing social attention span, but I rather like it.

2008-11-21T08:52:00.001-05:00

My son (18months) just had a sip of my Dunkin Donuts coffee (black) and
asked for another.

2008-01-14T08:29:00.001-05:00

Today begins the last week of my underemployment. I have accepted an almost full-time post-doctoral position at a residential drug and alcohol treatment facility. It is located right down the street from me, which is quite convenient. It should be some great experience.

I began this blog as an outlet to keep my sanity during my pre-doctoral internship. I don't know how much time I'll have to devote to this blog now that I'm a "post-doc." I hope to start posting more regularly now that I'll have a more regular work schedule.

If you're still a reader, thank you, and I hope to reward your vigilance soon.

2007-11-02T13:29:00.000-04:00

This morning I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation. Thanks be to God!

Jesus knows what is in man

2007-10-24T18:57:00.001-04:00

John 2:23-25

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

Living in our context of "moralistic therapeutic deism" and being myself someone who works in a therapeutic context, I have to try to process this short passage through a lens other than that of group psychotherapy or share-time at a youth retreat. My mind immediately translates this verse as, "Jesus didn't share his feelings with others..."

Brother Martin jumps off from this verse to talk about an application for us, that we ought not to trust ourselves to any spiritual teacher, but bring all teaching back to the scripture. He says that he will concede that many of the saints were indeed holy, righteous men, but they were not to be followed at every point. So, Benedict was a holy man, but where his 'rule' is set up as a necessity, he is not to be followed. He lists a number of heroes and says essentially, where their faith was pointed at Christ, follow their example, but where they err, get off the train.

Accordingly, I ought not entrust myself to Dr. Martin himself, or to C. S. Lewis, or to J. I. Packer or N. T. Wright or anyone whom I am now or have ever been tempted to say, "This is it. This person understands the Gospel and will give it to me straight."

Changes

2007-08-12T19:51:00.000-04:00

I've not entirely vanished from the earth, but I have been busy, as the update on the Dissertation-O-Meter will attest. I hope to be ready to defend my dissertation in the near future (maybe a month and a half or so?). Another change to the blog is an audio player of my pastor's sermons on the sidebar.

These days I do most of my blogging at the Boar's Head Tavern, which is an ongoing eccumenical conversation. Don't worry, there is a better Lutheran than I at the bar representing our views. I'm not going to abandon this blog anytime soon, however. I established it to keep me sane during my pre-doctoral internship which is now over, but I may begin some post-doc work shortly and may need the outlet.

Why I make the sign on the cross.

2007-05-17T10:29:00.000-04:00

My wife and I have taken to making the sign on the cross during various times during the divine service. For her, it's reflexive, having grown up Roman Catholic until only recently. I didn't make it to Confirmation in the RC, my parents deciding to join a non-denominational, Dispensational congregation.

Now, our church doesn't have all the trappings of a "high church" - no crucifixes, no incense, no statuary. We certainly don't go the other way either. We have both common cup and (non-disposable) individual cups (which my pastor reverently washes). I've been to individual confession. No CCM, no wandering away from the structure of the Divine service, our pastor wears vestments, etc. You get the idea. Also, no one (to my knowledge) makes the sign of the cross. I try not to look around, but you don't see that massive movement that you can't help but notice at an RC Mass.

So why do I make the sign of the cross at the risk of giving offense or possibly confusing others in the congregation? First, for my wife. Since it's reflexive for her, and since I'm convinced that it is in the realm of 'things indifferent', I do so to make the connection between how we as Lutherans practice and how the Church has practiced for centuries. Also for my children. I want to show my kids that what we do here is just as reverent as what Grandma does at her church (but with pure doctrine).

Finally, I love my baptism*. I need to remind myself constantly that what is going on in front of me, is actually for me by virtue of my baptism into Christ. I can buy that it's for the guy in front of me, but I really have to remind myself that it's for me. The Absolution (for me). The Body of our Lord (for me). The most significant part of my life in Lutheranism is the discovery of the sacraments. It amazes me anew every Sunday that Christ would condescend to give himself to us in simple bread and wine. But it's true.

I love watching baptisms, Christ's work to forgive sins applied to little people who can't contribute squat to the process. I'm excited about the prospect of bringing my son to the fount soon (if he would hurry up and be born already). I'm just glad that I could convince my wife that the tradition in the RC of dressing boys in long flowing baptismal gowns is best left to the Catholics.

* The first one. I was re-baptized by immersion during high school, but I consider my baptism as having occurred on March 11, 1979 at the hands of a Roman Catholic priest.

Mystery Luther Quote

2007-05-10T17:29:00.000-04:00

Alright. Somewhere along the line, I believe it was in an undergraduate course, I heard a quote attributed to Martin Luther regarding vocation. The gist of which was comparing the work of a monk to the vocation of a dung-shoveler. It would certainly not be out of character for Luther to use a scatological reference to make a point. Unfortunately, I'm not certain how to spell dung-shoveler in German, or I probably could have found the reference already. Does anyone know if this is a real Luther quote or if my source was full of it (heh, pun).

Gospel Hack

2007-04-25T12:34:00.000-04:00

No, not a reference to my Bible quiz skills, rather I wanted to share a procedure to make your own individually "bound". text editions of the gospels, free of chapter and verse numbers and other extraneous material.

The reason for making such a document is to facilitate reading the gospels in a single sitting. Verse numbers are useful, but tend to interrupt me and the full force of those "And immediately..." and other transitions are lost.

1. Go to my favorite Bible translation's web page and click on "read it online"
2. Click the Options (Beta) link in the top right
3. Turn off headings, subheadings, verse numbers, chapter numbers, and footnotes.
4. Search for a segment of the text, there is a 500 verse limit for one view, so search in segments of about 10 chapters - "John 1-10, John 11-20, etc."
5. Copy text and paste into the word processor of your choice
6. Find someone with a printer that will print in booklet mode - you may want to adjust the line spacing so that you can make notes in your clean text version.
7. Print a cover on some card stock paper.
8. Find someone with a long reach stapler so that you can add some staples down the spine.

You're done.

Dissonance and Evil

2007-04-23T10:07:00.000-04:00

So I haven't posted in quite a while because I was on a blog-fast over Lent, but now that Lent is over and I am so profoundly backlogged in my blog reading, it's hard to get back into it.

So, my three-year-old and I were listening to Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother in my car and at a particularly dissonant section she said, "Daddy, this sounds like my God book."
So, of course I had to ask about that. Turns out that it sounds like the snake in the garden to her. The very naughty snake.

No theological point here, rather a perceptual psychology observation. Apparently, by nearly four years old, dissonance sounds evil, without words or other cues as to what the song means.

Theses on Sanctification

2007-01-17T16:24:00.000-05:00

Theological Theses

Sanctification is a growing knowledge and conviction of my own failure to meet the demands of God’s holy and perfect Law that occurs throughout a person’s Christian life.
Along with knowing my sin more intimately, Sanctification is a growing trust on the merits of Christ alone for my salvation, and a growing despair of my own righteousness.
Sanctification is evident in a growing internal motivation to serve our neighbor boldly in the power of the Holy Spirit, who has prepared these truly good works for our benefit.
Service to neighbor in sanctification is not limited to “spiritual” activities or witnessing. #3 ought not to be understood as only a growing desire to verbally share our faith with others (though this does indeed occur) but a growing compassion for our neighbor, expressed through our various vocations.
Because of the above, sanctification is a decrease on focus on the self (in favor of focus on Christ and Neighbor).
Number 5 absolutely cannot be manufactured by trying hard, self-help, psychotherapy or other attempts at becoming a better person. In fact, these are antithetical to growth in sanctification as they direct one’s energy and attention to the self rather than the neighbor.
Focusing on reducing the number of sins one commits as evidence of sanctification is counterproductive (try not to think about pink elephants).
Sanctification does, however, involve active training. The confessions speak of fasting as “fine outward training” and Paul uses sports metaphors to describe the Christian life as requiring human effort. Life is not static.

Psychological theses

Much human behavior is automatic and not directly controlled by the conscious “will.” This can be seen most clearly in patients who have their behavior manipulated artificially (chemically or electrically) who then report post facto explanations for their behavior. The conscious mind often gives meaning to our behavior that is directed by the brain without conscious awareness. To use a computer metaphor, there are many processes going on behind the scenes when we operate a computer that are not accessible to the user. In the same way, the brain is processing information and directing behavior that is not in the conscious awareness.
Many use the fact that behavior is largely not consciously controlled to argue that free will is an illusion. The underlying processes of our brains are indeed largely genetically programmed, however, they are also open to change through experience and practice. Many behaviors (driving, riding a bike, grammar, etc.) become a largely automatic through practice. The brain conserves resources by automatizing functions that previously required effort.
Additionally, how we perceive the world is dependent upon our associations. This is not just the memory of events, but memory of how things work (procedural memory) which influence how we perceive events. When these differences vary systematically by culture, they are easier to see. For example, White and Black Americans have different cultural expectations about the physical distance between two people in a conversation. Violating these expectations (standing too close) will be reflexively attributed to the other person (this person is rude, aggressive, aloof, etc.) How we see the world is dependent upon our experience and upbringing.
Similarly, our perception of events will be determined by how we have been trained to think.

Integrative theses

Training the brains associations happens through repetition, not through force of will. Catechism, steeping the mind in scripture, liturgical prayer, hearing scripture read and expounded, all serve to train the brain well (Philippians 4:8).
Christians can use secular material, movies, music, books, etc. and through discernment, discover what is good in them, this ought not be the pattern of new Christians, children or the spiritually immature. Even the mature should be careful not to fill the mind excessively with ‘dark’ things. C. S. Lewis talked about reading one old book between every new book you read, or at least one old book for every 3 new books. Similarly here, we ought to be in the habit of refreshing our minds with what is good frequently.
Conversely, we can prepare ourselves to fall into sin through our consumption of media. Realistic video can be used to desensitize an individual from the natural revulsion to killing. Songs with explicit sexual content can normalize inappropriate sexual behavior and make lower one’s resistance to inappropriate behavior should a compromising situation present itself. We can train ourselves about what is “normal” and “appropriate.”
No amount of training, without the Holy Spirit, will result in Sanctification. It will result in civil righteousness and self-righteousness. Thus, learning to trust in the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf is equivalent to the process of being made holy, which, like Justification, is wholly God's work.

Happy Excommunication Day

2007-01-03T20:41:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1521, Martin Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X.

Big News (40 Tons)

2007-01-02T15:56:00.000-05:00

A new 40 ton functional MRI machine has been unveiled at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Unlike previous fMRI machines that provide a picture of blood-flow to various brain regions, this fMRI can apparantly provide a picture of individual neurons firing. Other fMRI images also have a huge time-lag problem, not so this one. I'm excited about this technology, to be sure. It also appears not to require the injection of radioactive material, such as in a SPECT scan. Read the piece from the Chicago Tribune via PsycPORT. At the end of the article there is a short discussion about the ethical concerns, especially if the technology is misused. The thing to remeber is that, even if we can see individual neurons firing, we can't read the mind directly. For example, I show you a picture of a cow. Your occipital lobe would light up as the brain processes the image. Some part of the cortex would "recognize" the cow - but there are a number of ways that the cow can be recognized. If you are a farmer, you may recognize by breed or other characteristics that are different if you happen to be a meat processor (you would notice other things about the picture). There is a "spreading activation" from the picture of the cow that would be different for each person. For example, I noticed that my daughter was watching the movie "the Barnyard" the other day. If you showed me a picture of a cow right now, I would remember that and start thinking about my daughter and my mother-in-law (in whose house she was watching it) and what day it was, etc. If you were watching my brain, and I didn't tell you about this, you would be confused. By the way, spreading activation is uncontrolable and I might not even be able to tell you what "thoughts" (nodes) are activated when you show me a picture. I don't think that anyone will ever be able to "read you mind" with such a technology, unless you spent a huge amount of time in the machine having it "learn" your particular brain.

Martin Luther King Jr. on Vocation

2006-12-15T19:28:00.000-05:00

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare composed poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pasuse and say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'"

Martin Luther King Jr. - Quoted on p. 363 of Krumboltz, J. D. & Chan, A. (2005). Professional Issues in Vocational Psychology, from Walsh W. B. & Savickas, M. L. (2005) Handbook of Vocational Psychology, 3rd edition.

German Christmas Carol Service

2006-12-10T21:27:00.000-05:00

We went to a German Christmas Carol service tonight. It felt like I was in a psychoanalytic lecture, Freud this and Freud that...

TNIV - Variant reading in Mark

2006-12-09T21:06:00.000-05:00

I was going to give the TNIV a chance, so I began to read in Mark. I got as far as verse 41 of chapter 1 where I read, "Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" So, I consulted my Greek New Testament (published 1994). The authors categorized this textual variant as a {B} meaning that the variant included in the text ("Jesus was moved with compassion..." - which is how nearly every other translation renders the verse) is "almost certain." The texts that support "indignant" were few and didn't seem to be more ancient than those that support the dominant translation.

"Indignant" would seem to be the kind of word that a monk might change to protect Jesus' reputation, but the weight of the textual evidence would seem to lean toward the traditional reading. So, does anyone have a more recent edition of the Nestle-Aland that would clear up why the editors went with this reading? Apparently, since my copy of the Greek New Testament was published, new papyri manuscripts have been included in the text (numbers 98 through 116) [2001 printing].

This is exactly the kind of thing I shouldn't worry about while I'm working on my dissertation...

Dutch Santa Claus

2006-12-08T20:54:00.000-05:00

Humorist David Sedaris talks about how the Dutch understand St. Nicholas. Click this link, scroll down one episode to the one titled "Them." Click the link then fast-forward to 25 minutes in (unless you want to listen to the whole episode of This American Life). The Sedaris piece is 7 minutes long and very worth the trouble.
{Note: not dirty but a reference to other Dutch practices at the end}

Stream of Consciousness Blues

2006-12-08T15:18:00.000-05:00

My 3-year-old daughter and I recorded a blues song last night. I think with her natural phrasing and dynamics, I could get her signed to the Fat Possum label. We have to work on her lyrics. On second thought, general incomprehensibility has made millions for others...

Listen through to the end (only a minute, thirty-eight seconds of your life squandered). I wish other musicians knew when they have said enough.

God's Self-Deception

2006-12-06T15:08:00.000-05:00

This morning, as I headed for Dunkin Donuts for the best coffee on earth, I happened to flip to EWTN radio. I was startled to hear Luther's famous snow-covered dung analogy being discussed. The host of the show commented that it sounded to her that if God looked at us and saw Christ's righteousness rather than our sinfulness, that He would be deceiving Himself. Wow. How utterly foreign this is to the gospel.

I love the snow-covered dung analogy, especially since the alternative is so unlovely.

Happy St. Nicholas Day

2006-12-06T12:36:00.000-05:00

I've always had a connection to St. Nicholas of Myra, since his saint day coincides with my birthday. I like him even more after I found out that he smacked Arius at the Council of Nicaea. Check out this brief biography, this account of his transformation into Santa, and this liturgical commemoration which includes new hymn lyrics that tactfully mention the slapping incident ("The heretic he scorned" heh).

Documentary on "Church Growth"

2006-12-01T16:09:00.000-05:00

NO JOB FOR YOU!

2006-11-16T10:43:00.000-05:00

After making it to the top 3, interviewing for 5 hours, and waiting a month to find out, I have received official news that I did not get the full-time job for which I was hoping. I have been working on my dissertation and hopefully I will be able to adjust the "Dissertation-O-Meter" rather dramatically in the near future.

Lutheran Carnival XXXVI

2006-11-06T08:25:00.000-05:00

Now hosted at the Markel Family blog.

Code Name: "Pinocchio"

2006-11-02T09:24:00.000-05:00

Glory be to God, He has given us a second child, at present only 15mm tall. My daughter (3) is using the code name "Pinocchio" for this child, just as she was code named "Snicker-Doodle" for her gestation. Prayers are appreciated.

Prayer Before Class

2006-10-27T21:32:00.000-04:00

I'd like your thoughts. I'm about to begin teaching (undergraduate level) and I want a prayer with which to begin every class that includes vocational elements. I would like some feedback about theology, flow, language, etc.

O God and Father of our Lord and Teacher, Jesus Christ, grant us diligence and attention to our vocations as students and teacher that our knowledge and wisdom may increase to the blessing of our neighbor, through the same, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

I wanted the idea of Christ the Teacher as the attribute of God that leads to the Petition. I don't know whether it comes through cleanly enough.

More thoughts on the Baylor Religion Survey

2006-10-26T15:54:00.000-04:00

Baylor has not answered my polite request for details about which items loaded on the dimensions of Belief in God's Anger and Belief in God's Engagement. The raw data is not available on the American Religious Data Archive either. So, I will post a couple more observations about the initial report of the results, American Piety in the 21st Century.

According to the random sample of 1,721 individuals, Evangelicals make up 33.6% of the population. Let's take a look at how the authors group folks:

The authors define Evangelical Protestant as:

"Protestant groups that emphasize the authority of the Bible, salvation through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, personal piety, and the need to share the "Good News" of Jesus Christ with others (i.e., to evangelize). A long list of theologically conservative denominations define this tradition, such as Anabaptist, Assemblies of God, Bible Church, Brethren, Christian Church, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Christian Reformed, Church of Christ, Church of God, Church of the Nazarene, Free Methodist, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Mennonite, Pentecostal, Presbyterian Church in America, Seventh-day Adventist, and Southern Baptist."

Further, they define Mainline Protestant as follows:

"Historic Protestant denominations that are more accommodating of mainstream culture, including American Baptist, Congregational, Disciples of Christ, Episcopal/Anglican, Evangelical Lutheran Church, Presbyterian Church USA, Quaker, Reformed Church of America, United Methodist, and United Church of Christ."

According to this breakdown we in the LCMS have more in common with Pentecostals than with the ELCA. Rather than grouping the denominations a priori
based on supposed theological conservativeness, it would be interesting to do a cluster analysis to see if denominations do indeed fall into these groupings. Interestingly, those who are grouped as Evangelical Protestants identified themselves as "Bible Believing" (68%) much more frequently than they described themselves as "Evangelical" (32%). [Note: these categories were not mutually exclusive, you said yes or no to whether or not each describes your beliefs.] Only 27% of people categorized as Evangelical Protestants endorsed "Theologically Conservative" as a descriptor of their religious identity, despite the fact that the authors use "theologically conservative" to define the denominations included in this category.

When Evangelicals are asked which term best describes them, only 3.1% say "Evangelical", 7.6% say "Mainline Christian", 41.8% say "Born Again" and 27.3% say "Bible Believing." In fact, a larger percentage of Mainline Protestants say that "Evangelical" best describes them (4.6%) than do Evangelicals (3.1%). Clearly the a priori categorization does not jive with people's self-description. There are interesting differences observed between these groups on other variables (political and other beliefs), but it would be interesting to see how the data itself groups these denominations. Not a single Black Protestant self-categorized as "Evangelical".

Other categories were examined: Black Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Other and Unaffiliated. The "Other" category includes both smaller Christian groups (Orthodox [n=7]) as well as non-Christian groups (Mormon [n=22], Christian Science [n=2], Muslim [n=3], etc.) This "garbage can" category comprised only 4.9% of the sample, so obviously no conclusions can be drawn from it.

34% of Catholics define themselves as "Mainline Christian" indicating a fundamentally different definition from that of the author's. Also, only 5% of Catholics define themselves as "Born Again" - clearly reflecting a reaction against the popular definition of the term, rather than an ancient understanding of rebirth in baptism.

Attitudes toward the Scriptures were measured with the following question: "Which one statement comes closest to your personal beliefs about the Bible?"

The Bible means exactly what it says. It should be taken literally, word-for-word, on all subjects.
The Bible is perfectly true, but it should not be taken literally, word-for-word. We must interpret its meaning.
The Bible contains some human error.
The Bible is an ancient book of history and legends.
I don’t know

So, which do you endorse? I'd endorse something between numbers 1 and 2. Number 2 seems to lose it at "we must interpret its meaning" and doesn't talk about genre. The authors contrast the first response with the fourth, but it is unclear what they did with the second and third response options. Again, I'll know more when they release the raw data.

A Potpourri of other interesting things:

9.6% of Jewish people endorse "Jesus is the Son of God" - Given that the Jewish sample was 47 people, this constitutes just four and a half people (there must have been some Jewish people who were excluded from calculation). Is this a "all people are sons and daughters of God" or are these Jewish Christians? Must have raw data...
Not a single person under the age of 30 reports having read Dianetics.
Evangelicals spend the most on religious stuff.
Not a single African American respondent purported to be an atheist.
"Region of the country is significantly related to the four types of God. Easterners disproportionately tend towards belief in a Critical God. Southerners tend towards an Authoritarian God. Midwesterners tend towards a Benevolent God and West Coasters tend towards belief in a Distant God." (p. 28) - However, I don't know that this would be true after controlling for denomination. Denominations tend to be regional, although there could be a zeitgeist effect from the dominant denominatinos leaking into others in the area.
"Nearly one fifth of Americans thought that God does favor the United States in worldly affairs." (p. 39)
A question about reading habits included only these response options: Any book in the Left Behind series, The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, Any book about Dianetics, God’s Politics by Jim Wallis, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren, Any book by James Dobson (Focus on the Family)
Similarly, the question about viewing habits included only the following: The Passion of the Christ, This Is Your Day with Benny Hinn, Joan of Arcadia, Any VeggieTales movies or videos, 7th Heaven and Touched by an Angel

Reformation Day Pumpkins

2006-10-23T13:33:00.000-04:00

Can you name all of the "Reformers" carved in pumpkins below?
(Black and white templates of numbers 2-5 available upon request for your Reformation Day party needs.)

I'm all for beer metaphors.

2006-10-04T09:45:00.000-04:00

From Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controberial Force in the Catholic Church by John L. Allen, Jr. (2005 - Doubleday: NY)

If you want a guiding metaphor for Opus Dei, the spiritual organization founded in Spain in 1928 by Saint Josemaria Escriva that has become the most controversial force in Roman Catholicism, think of it as a Guinness Extra Stout of the Catholic Church. It's a stong brew, definitely an acquired taste, and clearly not for everyone.(p.1)

"Skip a bit, brother"

In an era when the beer market is crowded with "diet" this and "lite" that, Guinness Extra Stout cuts the other way. It makes no apologies for either its many calories or its high alcohol content. It packs a frothy, bitter taste that has been compared by some wags to drinking motor oil with a head. Precisely because it resists faddishness, it enjoys a cult following among purists who respect it because it never wavers. Of course, if you think it tastes awful, its consistency may not be its greatest selling point. Yet while Extra Stout may never dominate the market, it will always have a loyal constituency.

He then goes on to talk about how Vatican II was an attempt to brew a Lite version of Catholicism and that Opus Dei offers a "robustly classical alternative" (p. 2).

Happy Stevie Ray Vaughan Day!

2006-10-03T09:32:00.000-04:00

Since 1991, October 3 has been celebrated by Texans as Stevie Ray Vaughan Day (okay, only by a few enlightened Texans). I would fly my Texas flag today, but we have a huge (10' wide) Blackwell for Governor sign in our yard and it might send a bizarre message to have the Texas flag flying over the next Ohio governor's sign. Join me in celebrating by listening to SRV at obscene levels today and having a Shiner or two (if you are of appropriate drinking age, are not pregnant, and it violateth not thy conscience.)

What the...?

2006-09-30T22:43:00.000-04:00

Please tell me there's another definition of "Christian" with which I am not familiar?

Four gods for Americans?

2006-09-19T19:49:00.000-04:00

The already well-distributed finding from the Baylor survey found four gods that Americans' worship seems decidedly misleading to me.

The authors factor analyzed 29 items that revealed 2 dimensions. Factor analysis is a way of mathematically determining items that "hang together." In personality research, for example, it's been determined that descriptors such as "gregarious" and "assertive" hang together in a broad factor that's been called Extraversion. In the same way, these 29 items were factor analyzed such that 2 groups were clearly evident. Eight items hung well together and were given the name "Belief in God's Engagement" by the authors (p. 26). Six other items hung together well and were given the title "Belief in God's Anger."

In my personality example, I said that certain words descriptive of people tend to hang together to create factors. From this evidence it is posited that there actually exist 5 basic personality factors of human beings. The Lexical Hypothesis states that certain personality factors exist and that words for those characteristics have been invented to describe them. So, by factor analyzing what terms are ascribed to different individuals, one can see that certain terms tend to hang together. Bob tends to be both gregarious and assertive, Jim tends to be neither gregarious nor assertive. Only rarely is a person gregarious and not assertive, because these descriptors correlate well with each other.

Now lets take a look at the original 29 items (actually, I was only able to find 26 items that seemed to ask what God is like, so I must have missed something):
Set 1:
Even if you might not believe in God, based on your personal understanding, what do you think God is like?
1. A cosmic force in the universe
2. Removed from worldly affairs
3. Removed from my personal affairs
4. Concerned with the well-being of the world
5. Concerned with my personal well-being
6. Angered by human sin
7. Angered by my sins
8. Directly involved in worldly affairs
9. Directly involved in my affairs
10. A “He”

How well do you feel that each of the following words describe God?
11. Absolute
12. Critical
13. Distant
14. Ever-present
15. Fatherly
16. Forgiving
17. Friendly
18. Just
19. Kind
20. Kingly
21. Loving
22. Motherly
23. Punishing
24. Severe
25. Wrathful
26. Yielding

Now, since the raw data has not been released yet, I can only speculate as to which 8 items made up the God's Engagment scale and which 6 items made up the God's Wrath scale, but I bet I could guess, and I bet you could too. Remember that an item can load on a factor negatively, that is "Forgiving" could be on the God' Wrath scale, but loaded in a negative direction such that it counted in reverse - people who scored high on the Wrath scale being less likely to endorse "Forgiving" for example.

I can't see how two factors wouldn't emerge from these questions. Synonyms (and antonyms, negatively loaded) will very often load on a single factor, even if you are describing a dog rather than a god: wrathful, punishing, severe...

My problem with this part is that, if you were trying to ascertain how people conceive of God, you would want more items to cover more attributes. I see omnipotence in these items, but not omniscience for example. Where is Wise or All-Knowing. What about Sustaining? It seems to me that these items were assembled based on a hypothesis that Americans differ as to the level of Wrath and Engagement that they espouse in god. It's fine to have a hypothesis, in fact, it is necessary to ensure that you cover the domain with your items (i.e. to ensure that you have enough items about Wrath so that they can hang together meaningfully). But the way that this has been reported, you would think that this pattern emerged from a huge list of attributes. No, indeed, it appears that some people think that God is more engaged and some people think he is less engaged. Great. So long as it is clear that the test was trying to measure Engagment, not that it magically appeared.

Next, the authors put the two dimensions on a graph and divided each in half, creating 4 quadrants. They called the high-wrath, high-engagement group, "Authoritarian God"; the low-wrath, low-engagement group, "Distant God"; the high-wrath, low-engagement group, "Critical God"; and the low-wrath, high-engagement group, "Benevolent God." Now this would be just dandy if the data points tended to concentrate in these four quadrants, and perhaps they do. Cluster analysis of some sort could tell us if this is in fact true. In other words, do people tend to cluster in a zones of low wrath and high wrath with few in the middle? A quick look at a distribution table would tell us if the variable is bi-modally distributed, which would lend some credence to a "4 gods" argument, though it still only covers those 2 dimensions (add omniscience and perhaps we would be told that we live in an 8 god America). If, on the other hand, the data is more normally distributed, then a median split probably isn't appropriate (i.e. every body above 10 gets classified as belonging to a Wrathful God category while people who score below 10 we will call the non-Wrathful category even if most people score between 8 and 12 and very few people score a 2 or a 18).

Now, there certainly were interesting things related to people's membership in each of these four quadrants and the study was very well performed, but it seems to have been reported on poorly. Indeed, the study was more interested in how belonging to one of these categories affected other beliefs and behaviors, such as Church attendance, prayer, attitudes toward abortion, and political opinions. The study does make a strong case that where one lies on the continuum of belief regarding God's morality and God's activity does indeed affect ones behavior.

I have a great deal more to say about the initial results, so stay tuned.

The Codebook for the Survey from the Association of Religion Data Archives

The Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion

American Piety in the 21st Century: Selected Findings from the Baylor Religion Survey - this is the 74 page initial report on the findings - PDF

Lutheran Carnival #32

2006-09-10T09:26:00.000-04:00

The newest installment of Lutheran Carnival is up at Outer Rim Territories, blog of seminarian and fine fellow Christopher Gillespie.

Specialists in Applied Sanctification?

2006-09-08T11:53:00.000-04:00

The founder of the organization at which I did my internship described Christian mental health professionals as “specialists in applied sanctification.” I think this is a good example of the kind of error in thinking about the occupation that causes folks like Ryan from What Did Jesus Do to reject psychology outright, and makes others quite nervous about what we do.

It seems that a proper understanding of the two kinds of righteousness is absolutely essential here. Our fallen human nature and concupiscence means that we can never, ever, ever, ever, satisfy any of the first table of the law, even for a moment without the gift of faith. This is Christian Righteousness which is only possible with the free, completely unmerited gift of Christ's Righteousness. But, if I'm reading him correctly, Luther was willing to grant that non-believers, having the law written on their hearts, are able to do things which are civilly righteous at least some of the time. Indeed, while the will is entirely bound and cannot fear or trust in God, nor prepare itself in any way for faith, the will is free (truly and not just an illusion) in matters of Civil Righteousness. According to Luther this means being a good friend, working hard, being a faithful spouse, not murder, not steal, etc. (Augsburg Confession: Article XVIII). Let's posit for a second that non-believers are even able, lacking the Holy Spirit, to satisfy all of the second table of the law, even in their hearts (in other words, not murdering and not hating others in their hearts either, etc.) based on the general providence of God. Now, I don't think that this is the case for a second, but for arguments sake, let us posit it. Even if we were to concede this, lacking the Holy Spirit, damnation is entirely deserved on the basis of the first table alone, in fact, it is the first table that drives the rest. I love that the Short Catechism begins the explanations of all the commandments with a reference to the first commandment, "We should fear and love God that ..." and then goes on to explain that stealing is forbidden, etc. I don't believe that it is possible to satisfy the second table (especially internally as Christ taught on the Mount) without the Holy Spirit, and for this I praise God. It would be far too easy to convince myself that on the basis of my obedience to the second table, that I do indeed fear and love God, when I do not.

Now, while we are in the mood to posit things that are entirely impossible, let us posit that counseling/psychotherapy is able to help someone to improve themselves in accordance to the law such that they cease to violate any of the second table of the law. Some (especially behavioral) psychologists were convinced that eventually we would know the developmental features that play into different adult problems and provide a perfect environment that would enable optimal development. Additionally, in adulthood psychotherapy is provided to iron out any other irrational beliefs and personality flaws that the person might have. So as an adult, this hypothetical person has no desire to steal from others, being in touch with the feelings of others and being unwilling to subject others to pain. Lets assume that this is true for all of the commandments which refer to our dealings with other human beings.

Now the question becomes this, is this sanctification? No. Even if it were possible to eliminate sinful behavior in regard to others, this is not sanctification, as proven by the thought experiment above that non-believers are able to improve in this Civil Righteousness. Choose your favorite extremely moral non-believing group in the real world as an example. There are groups that are so Civilly Righteous that it puts Christians to shame and seduces Christians to believe lies because of the quality of the behavior of their adherants. This is what I meant several posts ago when I said that sanctification is not committing fewer sins. Rather, sanctification is growing in the fear and love of God, which is done entirely by the Holy Spirit and not of ourselves. Of course, this will lead to fewer civil violations because we will be motivated by our love of God to love our neighbors as well.

The problem with counseling in the hands of well-meaning Christians, is that it becomes understood as contributing to Sanctification. This is completely and utterly false. First, counselors are not the Holy Spirit and therefore have no power to make anything holy. Second, it misunderstands sanctification as pertaining to the second table of the law, or worse, involving warm feelings toward God/Jesus which is defined as the "love of God" which I believe to be manufacturable. I can help you to have warm feelings about a pole or a rock using principles of modeling and learning. Warm feelings toward my internal picture of God (made in my image) does not equate to fear and love of the God who is as He knows himself to be (thanks to Lewis via Screwtape for this language).

As always, I am (or hope that I am) entirely open to correction/reproof from my betters. Please let me know what you think.

Interesting Study

2006-09-07T16:44:00.000-04:00

A University of Toronto study found that there is a link between physical washing and feelings of moral guilt. Read the short news brief for yourself here.
A couple of thoughts:
1. Perhaps any really vivid metaphor, especially one with such a long history, gets encoded in the brain as physical reality.
2. Perhaps this is an example of an expectancy effect. For example, why do people fall down when they get shot, even by a small caliber round lacking "stopping power"? Because that's what you're supposed to do. (This example I took from the book Stiff by Mary Roach)
3. Perhaps this is an innate desire for the waters of baptism, imprinted in our natures, but sought in ordinary water rather than in the water attached to the Word.

Again, my prime frustration with science reporting - thanks for the lead author, but what journal was this published in so that I can find and read it for myself? Does that really take up that much space?

My Logo and Why I've Been Anonymous

2006-09-06T08:40:00.001-04:00

To honor the Terrible Swede's request, I want to explain the logo you see at upper right, where most people have their face (My all-time favorite is Josh's icon).

The reason that I chose to identify as Kletos Sumboulos ("Called to be a Counselor") on this blog and not have a picture is that I was seeing clients under someone else's license. There are psychologists and counselors that have web pages and blogs of their own, and they use their real names, but I don't have a license and need to protect my supervisor's. My real name is Michael Benoit (pronounced Ben-wah). Everything else is true, in other words, I'm not doing the alter-ego thing. I've had clients look up information about me in the past, so I know how incredibly easy it is. Most counselors strive to not let anything about their personal lives or beliefs be know to a client, because it may interfere with what you are trying to accomplish in session. Some go as far as removing wedding rings to not give clues to marital status or sexual orientation. In a Christian counseling center, people are rather overt about religion. Most of the offices at the organization I worked for look like an aisle at a Christian book store. I didn't want people to find my blog and identify me as their counselor because my religious views are very different with that of my former organization. Trust me, I have shot directly from the hip on a few occasions, for instance, challenging a client who has never been baptized but was attending Lutheran services with his girlfriend (I pray he wasn't/isn't taking the sacrament). I routinely told people about my doctrinal commitments when asked or it was a matter of full-disclosure. I also made a Luther Rose clock that all my clients were well aware of (the only one in the room), and of course, my "Most Certainly Brew" mug and Luther's wedding ring were rather dramatic reminders of my commitments. Anyway, my blog has been anonymous this last year because of my work.

The logo I created incorporates elements of my professional identity but by no means all of it. First, the required letter psi for Psychology. The American Psychological Association uses a stylized psi for their logo. The Christian Association for Psychological Studies uses the cross as the descending line on the psi to create their logo. I personally object to this symbol because, while the cross is higher than the psi in the logo, they are connected. This feels too much to identify the two. I have intentionally put the psi into the lower half of my logo for this reason.

The second symbol is the beehive. According to Reverend Peterson's comment, the bee or beehive symbolized Christian work historically. My training is in Counseling Psychology which is distinct from Clinical Psychology in both history and focus. While Clinical Psych focuses on pathology, Counseling Psych ostensibly focuses on health and strengths. Because of this reason and because of the development of Counseling Psych from the career guidance movement after the first World War, vocational psychology has always been a significant chunk of what Counseling Psychologists do in research and practice. My advisor is a big name in the Society for Vocational Psychology and I have chosen to focus my own research on Voc Psych. I have been consciously trying to see what the beautiful doctrine of vocation means for the science of vocational psychology and vice versa. See my post, Toward a Lutheran Psychology of Work.

Finally, we have a modified Luther Rose with Simul Justus et Peccator inscribed around the outside. I posted about how I used this as a therapeutic device in a previous post.

By the way, I'm 1/4 Swede, my mother's father was a full Swede (Carlson) and would routinely curse in Swedish. He would say something that sounded like "shish-kalla-poiken" which apparently translated to "shut up, lad."

My Logo and Why I've Been Anonymous

2006-09-06T08:40:00.000-04:00

ABD {spit!}

2006-08-30T21:26:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow at 9:01PM, I will officially be ABD {spit!} which stands for All But Dissertation {spit!} because at exactly that time, my pre-doctoral internship will be complete and the only thing that will stand between me and a firm handshake from the president of the university and a colorful velvet hood will be the completion of my dissertation. I swore that I would spend no time at all as an ABD {spit!} but, 'twas not to be. Technically, I have something like 6 years to complete it, but I would have to retake comprehensive exams {wretch!} if I let it go for even a couple of years. Here is the revised prediction: I'll graduate (again) May, 2007. God help me!

Classic Rock Test

2006-08-30T19:58:00.000-04:00

The Veteran

You scored 88%!

You've picked up the majority of the classic rock basics. You probably have a classic rock collection and can sing along with most of the songs on your local radio station.

This is not the highest score, but it is arguably the best: that subtle combination of impressive knowledge and not being a pretentious geek.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on notes

Link: The BASIC classic rock Test written by allmydays on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Te Deum

2006-08-27T09:30:00.000-04:00

Check out Sean's post on the Te Deum as the quintessential hymn of the Church.

I spent Lent this year chanting this hymn every day to memorize it, only to find out that Lent is the only time when the church doesn't use this hymn.

One of the reasons that I wanted to memorize this hymn is that I want it to be so ingrained in my brain that when whatever neurological disease catches up with me and I loose my mental abilities, I will automatically (and continually) chant the Te Deum and annoy the nurses at the 'facility'. I've seen people fixated on the post office or some snippet of their work 40 years ago. I want my fixation and obsession to be this hymn. My God grant me this favor.

Hear what I'm saying...I don't want to be stuck in 'vain repetition' for the credit it will bring me with God (because it won't), nor do I particularly like the idea of not being able to reason and discuss Christ consciously with others. But, If my brain goes and all I can retain is one thing, let it be this terse summary of what Christ has done for us.

TNIV

2006-08-17T19:43:00.000-04:00

My biggest concerns with the TNIV (to answer a comment to the previous post) are when the change to gender neutrality has Christological implications:

TNIV: For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a human being.

TNIV: he protects all their bones, not one of them will be broken.

New Job

2006-08-17T16:21:00.000-04:00

Horrah! I have been offered and accepted an adjunct faculty position at a nearby Christian college teaching undergraduate business statistics and assisting with the students' bachelors theses.

I received my teaching supplies yesterday and along with the stats and questionnaire research books I received a copy of the Bible, nicely bound in "Italian duo-tone" with the college's logo embossed in the lower-right. Rather beautiful actually.

TNIV

Aaarrrrrggggggg!!!

I think this is pretty telling about the character of the college, actually. Clearly they love the
scriptues. That they would give a copy to an adjunct professor of statistics is evidence of that. They obviously think of themselves as Bible-based, and based on the translation they want the Bible to be accessable to everyone. This is an attempt to put it in the best possible light.

But what's up with the weak translation? I think the accessibility arguement is inappropriate for a college setting. I think at the college level, people should be expected to have a fairly high comprehension level and be able to discern nuance, which is considerably flattened in a translation like TNIV. Not that I would have the college logo embossed on copies of the Greek New Testament to hand out as gifts, well...maybe I would.

Ad Fontes!

Lutheran Sculpture Competition

2006-08-12T09:40:00.000-04:00

I've thought for a while that it would be great to have a garden statue of Dr. Luther and his Katie in my back yard. There are a number of great full-size Luther statues, for example the statue at Our Savior in Houston of Luther clutching Exsurge Domine, but I can find no garden size statues of Herr Doktor.

You see, I have two perfect spots for a garden statuary, but my choices at present are St. Fiacre, St. Francis, the BVM, St. Joseph, or a goose.

So in the tradition of the great competition between Brunelleschi and Ghiberti for the doors of the Baptistery at Florence 1401, let us hold a competition between Lutheran artists for the best garden statue of Luther and Katie.

I will acknowledge that garden statues are probably not the zenith of a sculptors ambition but there is a long history in the arts of making popular pieces to pay for the artists higher ambitions. The artists would retain the rights to sell all entries, but would have to promise to make them available for purchase by the common man, whether by producing them themselves, or selling latex molds of the creations for reproduction by someone else.

So here's the proposal, would anyone like to sponsor such a competition so that there is an actual prize for the winner? Are there any Lutheran sculptors would would like to take up the challenge?

Questionable Validity

2006-08-11T08:19:00.000-04:00

You know an online quiz has questionable validity when a recent Lutheran (me) scores more like Luther on a quiz of eucharistic belief than a couple seminarians.

I scored 100% Martin, 13% Catholic, 0% Calvin, 0% Zwingli, 0% Unitarian

So, either I'm doing a great job of catechizing myself or the test is a bit flawed. I'm going with the latter.

Captain Obvious is a research psychologist

2006-08-07T19:10:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, studies are conducted to demonstrates what is intuitively obvious to everyone else, on the off chance that lay perception is incorrect, which has certainly happened in the past.
On PsycPORT today, we have two amazing examples.

Teens who watch TV wrestling more violent

Sexual lyrics prompt teens to have sex, study finds

Yes, steeping your brain in violence and sex does indeed have real-life consequences.

And, no, your 12-year-old doesn't just listen to the beat and ignore the lyrics, despite what he or she protests to the contrary. Hey, I think I should do a study to prove that. Hate mail from the prepubescent crowd would be fun.

Metallica and Mark 9

2006-08-02T15:52:00.000-04:00

Metallica's song One is a first-person narriative of a person who has been mutilated in a land-mine explosion. He has lost sight, hearing, speech and all of his limbs. He is conscious of pain and darkness, a living hell. It occurs to me that this is exactly what I would look like if I took Mark 9:43-47 literally. Oh, I'd probably have to start with a Galatians 5:12. But then, this wouldn't really get rid of the sin from my heart, which Christ has said is sin indeed (Matthew 5). So, maybe an orbital-frontal lobotomy would also be in order. Probably not radical enough. I think I'd have to aim for a 'persistant vegetative state.'

Christ could sure preach the law. Mark 9:43-47 is a stark passage that reminds me how really awful sin is in God's sight.

Lutheran Carnival XXVIII

2006-07-16T10:16:00.000-04:00

Vicar Lehmann hosts the XXVIII edition of the Lutheran Carnival: aqui esta.

What else do you do?

2006-07-12T20:51:00.000-04:00

My friend Devona issues a great post on her encounter with a professor from her college days who, upon seeing her with a toddler and pregnant with her second child, asked worriedly if she is okay.

Having gone through four years of graduate training in the most liberal field there is I must confess that I must have imbibed some of the professor's thought process as well. One of the first times I spoke with Devona after church, I asked her what she did "besides" raising her daughter. A foolish question, for which I am sorry. Granted that this was an attempt to get to know her better and to establish some common ground, but it was stupid. It presupposed that anyone of our age is probably doing work outside of the home and that parenting isn't a full-time position, which is patently untrue. It was also before I realized that she was the blogger that I had been reading for quite some time, in which case my question would have been moot.

In our culture we use occupation as shorthand for "who are you." Psychologically speaking, you can learn a great deal about a person if you know what occupation they have chosen, especially if you know that they like the work they do. Referencing back to my earlier post about personality, there are many things that people use as "identity claims" about myself in conversation. Some of them have to do with vocations - I am a student of Counseling Psychology. I am a confessional Lutheran (albeit recent and learning). I am an amateur guitarist and I like to sing. This last one was particularly salient to me in college - I had friends that would refer to me as Blind Dog, my blues band persona. I am a father. I am a husband. I am an intern for the time being. I am a scientist (though there are those who would disagree with this claim).

All of these and more are ways that I think about myself and some of them are properly vocations. Then of course there are some things about me that I don't care to share with others too readily. I can be ungrounded and driven by every wind of doctrine. I don't lead my family spiritually as I ought. Many, many, excruciatingly more. Most people don't lead with this list, however. "Hi, I'm Kletos and I am rather doctrinally spineless."

We all have different "identities" that we use to categorize and think about ourselves (even if your identity happens to be "nonconformist"). Devona's post is about solidifying the identity of motherhood into something that is salient and important to her and being ready to defend that identity in the world that doesn't value motherhood.

I wish I could have heard the identity claim, "I am a mother" without expecting something else.

Doctrinal Statement - Would you sign?

2006-07-12T09:56:00.000-04:00

I'd like your thoughts on a doctrinal statement that I may have to face in the future. I will, of course, be addressing this with my faithful Pastor.

One God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The deity of Jesus Christ, in whose person are united the divine and human natures so that He is truly both God and man; His virgin birth, sinless life, miracles, vicarious and atoning death; His bodily resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father, and His personal return in power and glory.
The present ministry of the Holy Spirit convincing sinners of sin and regenerating, sanctifying, guiding, and empowering believers.
The plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, their essential unity, and their inviolable authority.
The fall of man through the sin of our first parents; the death and hopelessness of man apart from the work of redemption wrought by Jesus Christ.
Reconciliation with God through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ by repentance for sin and receiving of forgiveness and new life by faith in Jesus Christ as Savior.
Sanctification of the reconciled believer through the operation of the Holy Spirit by the complete dedication of believers to God and the receiving by faith of cleansing from enmity against God; by walking in daily obedience as true and fervent disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ and growing more like Him in maturity of character; and by following the guidance of the Holy Spirit and receiving His empowerment for continuous victory over sin and for service unto God.
Our obligation to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, making disciples of all men everywhere.
The spiritual unity of all believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.
The immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, the final judgment of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, resulting in the eternal fellowship of the righteous with God, and the eternal separation of the wicked from God.

I’m cool with 1 through 5, though I may have missed something.

Theology seems to live in the prepositions. I would change number 6 from “reconciliation with God through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ by repentance for sin...” to “reconciliation with God by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ by means of repentance of sin...” I’m also not sure about the “and” clause does it connect parallel thoughts? Do I divide the first part of the thought after the word “through” or after the word “by” (“Through this and this” or “by this and this.”)

Number 7 suffers from prepositional confusion too. “Sanctification...by the complete dedication of believers to God...” This one is worse however, in that it keeps adding “by” phrases. The operation of the Holy Spirit is first, but then we have “by...dedication of believers to God” “by walking in daily obedience.” etc.

“By” has lots of definitions, such as “through the action of” as in “My web page is designed by me” or “with the use or help of” as in “we came by the back road” or “through the agency or action of” as in “he was killed by a bullet.” To say that sanctification is through the agency of the complete dedication of believers to God is right out.

The phrase, “growing more like Him in maturity of character” bothers me a bit. If it means that I will fear and love God more and more, then I agree. If it means that I will sin less and less and eventually be morally like Christ, I disagree.

Number 8 is okay. I don’t think that it is every Christian’s vocation to publicly preach, but I do think it is every Christian’s calling to be ready in and out of season to give the reasons for his or her hope.

Number 9 is a bit vague for my tastes. What does the “spiritual unity of all believers” mean? Is this an ecumenical gesture or does it refer to the Church Triumphant and the fact that we are one body under one head, Jesus Christ? If it means that I accept all who claim to be “Christians” as true heirs with Christ, then no.

Number 10 is good. I would probably change the word “soul” to “person” but clearly they aren’t espousing the immortality of disembodied souls, as the next phrase proclaims the resurrection of the body.

Am I being too nit-picky? Are there not turns of phrase in the Book of Concord that could be overanalyzed? I wonder if this organization would accept a copy of the Lutheran Symbols with my signature on the back page? Please help me refine my thinking on this document.

True Story from Graduate School

2006-07-11T13:23:00.000-04:00

The scene is a graduate classroom in which we are discussing factors that people find desirable in a mate. As various students give answers, "emotional stability", "wealth", etc. I raise my hand and answer, "fidelity"

"Bark!" responds the professor. Not the word, but the sound of a barking dog.

Then class moves on. I don't know exactly what to think. Much later, months later, I process this event with a colleague. (Much like Christians "share" with each other, psychology graduate students "process" things with each other.) She confirms that I did not misperceive something else as a bark. I was actually barked at in a graduate classroom of a public university. Only then, processing it with a friend, did I get a bit angry. For two reasons:

Had a barked at any of my Psych 101 students for any reason whatsoever, I would be out of the program. Guaranteed. This would be considered the height of inappropriate behavior. We have an institutional statement on creating a Civil Learning Environment and this certainly would qualify as incivility coming from me.
As far as I know, and I believe research would support this contention, fidelity is valued not only by heterosexual, religious men, but also by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals, by feminists and by liberals. I was expressing a wide-open opinion: that people want their mates to be theirs and not other peoples. Of course you could take issue with my opinion, but I could take issue with someone else's assertion that wealth is valued in mate selection. Taking issue is different from barking.

In processing the incident with a colleague, we figured out what happened. This was my first and only class with this particular professor, who is well known for work with women's issues. My reputation preceded me – the professor knew that I was a religious person and it was quite obvious that I am male. The professor might also have heard me refer to my wife as "my wife" rather than "my spouse" which is normative in my program. The professor must have expected me to espouse patriarchical values, to be controlling over my spouse (which a brief conversation with my wife would readily disconfirm) and to be intolerant. When I said something innocuous, the professor heard it through that lens of expectation. This is exactly the intolerance that we are so thoroughly drilled to resist in my program.

No, this incident didn't hurt my self-esteem or wound me intrapsychically. If anything it gave me a great story about my graduate training. I'm sure to get some mileage out of it. It illustrated for me the one-sidedness of tolerance that is preached in our public universities. I was a "victim" of religious intolerance (albeit so slight as to be trivial), and I know for a fact that had I done the same action in reference to someone of a minority sexual orientation or ethnicity, I would be searching for a new profession.

Hoc Est Corpus Meum

2006-07-03T16:39:00.000-04:00

I forgot whom, but somewhere along the line, I head a preacher or teacher discussing the words of institution. Somehow I remember him saying that in the original, there was no equivalent of of the word "is", no "est" like in the Latin: Hoc est corpus meum. The teacher was saying that "I am the door" was a similar construction, and clearly none of us believe in Christ's literal door-ness.

Today I finally looked it up, and there staring back at me on page 102 of my Greek New Testament are the words, touto estin to soma mou. Now, it's been 6 or 7 years since I studied Greek in college, but I remember that estin is an eimi verb. So, I went Googling for what in the world I was recalling. Turns out that some have argued that since Aramaic has no connecting verbs, and since Jesus must have been speaking Aramaic in the upper room, he didn't intend what the gospel author's imply with their Greek constructions.

The psychological principle here is called source monitoring error. The danger of misinformation is enhanced when the information is encoded, but the source is not. Behavior can be changed, in this case, some residual doubts about the Real Presence, based on hearing information from dubious sources. You remember that "somewhere" you heard thus and such, but you can't quite remember where it was that you heard it. In the laboratory, researchers have shown that information from even very non-credible sources (think Pravda), can change attitudes and behavior.

Could this teaching that I was exposed to have come from a Christian who held high regard for the Scriptures, but was overcome by a tempting fact (lack of "being" verbs in the Aramaic) that supported his theology so well? Given that the Church of the East is in communion with Rome (if I can trust the "collective ignorance" of Wikipedia) then I don't think that they use this argument about the words of institution, despite their use of the Peshitta. (Some Aramaic primacists in the CotE claim that Aramaic is the language of the monographs of the N.T.).

This blogger's personality.

2006-07-01T14:03:00.000-04:00

Only six people, so far, have responded to my request to rate my personality based on my blog. Turns out that this was enough for a demonstration anyway. There were ten questions, five displaying the positive direction of the personality trait and five the negative direction.

Neuroticism - is the level of emotional reactivity of a person, primarily negative emotions.

Extraversion - is the level of sociability and positive emotionality a person has. People high on extraversion also have a lot of energy.

Openness to Experience - this factor has to do with willingness to experience the world. creativity and imagination Intelligence are part of this. Some tests use political liberalness as a proxy for this factor, which is why people like me get widely variant results on different tests of the big 5. (Some tests of the five factors divide them up onto facets - I'm high on all of the facets except liberalness.)

Agreeableness - this factor is about being friendly, cooperative, and warm. Low scorers tend to be agressive and cynical. Being too high on Agreeableness has its drawbacks too, because these people tend to allow others to take advantage of them.

Conscientiousness - this facet has to do with being reliable, diligent, careful and rule oriented.
The first graph is a depiction of your average ratings of me and my own self-ratings (done before I asked y'all.) You can see that a similar pattern is evident, but there is some disagreement.

I standardized the scores (z score) which makes both scales more comperable. It uses the average rating as a baseline, so that you can see how each score falls relative to that average. This allows my self-ratings and your ratings of me to be compared.

When standardized, you can really see that we agreed about my level of Extraversion and Openness to Experience, but we were most off on Conscientious.

You're perception of my Agreeableness is lower both in absolute terms and when standardized.

Having given you some basic feedback, next time I will answer Solarbloggers comments about testing in the practice of psychology.

Morning Prayer

2006-06-30T21:01:00.000-04:00

Today I led my co-workers in Morning Prayer a la the Brotherhood Prayer Book.
I've posted the audio here. I did edit out a few comments between sections. Note that I really screwed up tone VIII for Benedictus (part 4). I'm not certain if I did the Lection correctly either. Let me know what you think.

Blog Personality

2006-06-27T10:09:00.000-04:00

I've often heard people respond to criticisms of their blogging with the idea that "you think you may know me, but you don't really know me." I just read an article that seems to indicate that we can know a great deal about people based on their online work. Perhaps not their heart and soul, but at least a great deal about the fundamental personality dimensions that shape their behavior.

Vazire & Gosling (2004) e-Perceptions: Personality Impressions Based on Personal Websites. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol 87 (123-132)

These researchers had people rate the personality of individuals whose web page they had reviewed. They compared these ratings with the page owners' self-reported personality. They then compared the accuracy of these ratings to previous research that looked at how accurately someone's personality could be judged based on seeing a picture of their bedroom or office.

The theory behind the study is that people make "identity claims" on their web pages, symbolic statements about who they are and what they are like. A good example of this would be page buttons and links. Everything from format to buttons to graphics are attempts to give others an impression of who you are. In the case of an office, the books on your shelf, the pictures on your walls, etc. all are intentional expressions of your personality.

The other kind of information that is able to be gleaned is called "behavioral residue." These are unintentional disclosures about yourself. In previous research, rating photos of bedrooms and offices, this included pizza boxes, gym socks, etc. Stuff laying around that gives you an idea of what the person does on a daily basis. The authors of the article said that this is pretty rare on a web page. I contend that on a blog, it is not at all rare. Behavioral residue includes spelling and grammar errors (or scrupulosity), speed at which a comment acknowledged, tone of responses, frequency of link updating, and other things that give you a clue as to what the author is really like. The study used static web pages rather than blogs, which I think are probably better indicators of personality as they include dynamic interactions between people.

So, here's a brief experiment. Follow this link and answer 10 quick questions about this blog. I will then do a post summarizing the results and talking about what the 5 factors of personality are.

By the way, this does relate to work. Anymore, it is entirely acceptable to have a web resume or an online portfolio (especially for the techies among us). Further, these five personality dimensions are very work relevant, and I'll explain that later. So, we could be saying a lot more about ourselves on a web resume than we think we are saying. It would make sense to consciously tailor your online presence to convey what you want about yourself, rather than accidentally revealing things that are not in your best interest.

Where I'll await the resurrection

2006-06-23T21:08:00.000-04:00

My mother-in-law apparently bought several plots in a local cemetary for her family and the families of her two daughters. It's fairly surreal to know where you might await the resurrection at less than 30 years old.

Sacred Heart of Jesus

2006-06-23T14:41:00.000-04:00

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on the Roman calendar. This is completely incomprehensible to me. Any thoughts?

Premarital education

2006-06-22T10:22:00.000-04:00

Interesting report here.
31% lower chance of divorce for those who went to some sort of premarital education. So, of course, I pulled the original article:

Stanley, S. M., Amato, P. R., Johnson, C. A., & Markman, H. J. (2006). Premarital education, marital quality, and marital stability: Findings from a large, random household survey. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 117-126.

Having a religious wedding was related to having premarital education, as noted in the brief report. Divorce was related to cohabitation prior to the wedding, and negatively related to having a religious ceremony and also negatively related to having had marriage education. Having children was very strongly related to a lower divorce risk.

The "third variable" problem was handled pretty well by these authors. It could be that something else causes both divorce and the likelihood of attending marriage education. My first thought is that those who are more committed to making their marriage work are more likely to attend a marriage workshop. Also, they didn't measure such things as whether the individual had parents who divorced. They used a statistical method called biprobit analysis to reduce the likelihood that other variables influenced the correlation, but as we all know, correlation does not imply causation (however the lack of correlation certainly implies the no causal relationship exists). Most compelling for me was the finding that the longer the education (in hours) the more it prevented divorce. It looks like a "dose response" effect. However, it could be that those who are really committed to making it work sign up for longer workshops.

My own marital education included talking to a priest, doing "Pre-Cana" counseling with a parish couple and attending a retreat sponsored by the Diocese. Lots of "exercises" and very little education about marriage.

By the way, how would a Roman Catholic answer the question, "Have you ever been divorced" if they had received an annulment? I understand that a civil divorce must still happen, but if called out of the blue by someone asking whether you got married in a church, would that set some people up to say "no" to the divorce question?

The Holy Spirit drives a black SUV

2006-06-13T17:56:00.000-04:00

Driving to a job interview today, I saw a car with the license plate “1 SPIRIT” and a bumper sticker that said simply, “I Am.” Either the Holy Spirit drives a black Toyota, or someone ought to watch their use of the Divine Name (John 18:6.)

Emotions

2006-06-12T08:33:00.000-04:00

Solarblogger asks of my last post:

So what do people in your circles, or what do you, think of Antonio D'Amasio's thesis in Descartes' Error? That emotion is the underpinning of rationality, especially in practical decision making?

This is a very interesting applied psychology question at present. The current "gold standard" treatment for depression (among other disorders) is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) which teaches people how to interrupt "negative self-talk" or thoughts that you characteristically repeat to yourself which give rise to negative emotions. We have known for a while now, however, that emotion happens more quickly than do thoughts from a processing standpoint. So: See a bear -> feel fear -> think "oh crap"

This is simply a function of how the brain is wired. It just takes longer for information to get to the frontal lobe to be processed more completely. I have a good example from real life. I was driving down a hill at dusk and a white bird flew perpendicular to the road, about horizon level. Because I was driving down a hill and the becuase the bird was flying very fast, my brain interpreted the object as something MASSIVE and I experienced startle/fear/panic. Then my consciousness caught up and I figured out what it was - just as I was stepping on the brake. Most psychological problems are not this simple though, unless we are talking about a phobia (fear of spiders). Most psychological problems are a complex amalgam of emotions, cognitions and memories.
I have not read D'Amasio's book, but my instict is that he oversimplifies to make the case that emotions 'underpin' cognition. I think that there is definitely a synthesis of emotion and cognition that drive behavior. For example, there are people who lack emotional intelligence (the ability to use emotional information) sometimes make mistakes that don't seem to have anything to do with emotions. It seems that our "gut" feeling is at times related to deep processing that we can't exactly put our finger on rationally, but that is instructive. People who have deficits in emotional processing can have very poor judgement while possessing remarkably high intelligence. However, our emotions can also lead us astray - as evidenced in this paper which shows that emotions can lead us to disadvantageous behavior in certain situations, such as investing (link is full text PDF).
All this is to say that emotions and cognitions are both very valuable in processing information. This is an important caveat for those who pride themselves on their rationality and say that feelings should be eschewed when making decisions: unless you are brain damaged, your 'rational' decisions will always be flavored with emotion. Psychology claims that complete objectivity is an illusion. You must do things to check this if you are to make a truly rational decision - you ought to actively seek alternatives, you ought to state beliefs such that they are able to be falsified, you ought to use statistics to make decisions, etc. On the other hand, it would be foolish to try to rely solely on emotions, as they don't provide enough information and are easily manipulated (through music for example). Reason is only the devil's whore in relation to our salvation, after all.

I invite my colleague, Theophilia to offer her thoughts on this topic as well.

Tissues

2006-06-08T10:08:00.000-04:00

I had to open a new box of tissues in my office yesterday. I was taking perverse pleasure in the fact that I was still on my first box of tissues since I began my internship. Other clinicians make their clients cry a great deal and thus need a box every week or so. I was taking some pride in being the anti-therapist, helping clients as a counselor without making them cry. I do think that I could be significantly more “emotional” with clients, because emotion often overrides cognition or at least greatly motivates behavior. Emotion is thought to be more “primitive” – i.e. animals use emotion to direct behavior without having higher-order processing abilities. It is thought that working with emotions can change behavior by changing the reflexive responses (emotions) that are triggered with everyday stimuli and stresses.

Oh, and the reason I didn’t make my goal of a single tissue year – I have hay fever.

Pascal's Wager

2006-06-03T09:12:00.000-04:00

Dan at Necessary Roughness comments on this modification of Pascal's Wager: “I would rather live my life as if there is a God, and die to find out there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn't, and die to find out there is.”

In the comments I entertain a different line of thinking, which is probably balderdash but could be amusing.

If I’m a Christian and the Muslims are right, I still get to go to a form of heaven as a Person of the Book. If I’m a Christian and the Hindus are right, I get another chance. If I’m a Christian and the Mormons are right, I get to go to heaven, but I don’t get all the cool stuff (like planets over which to rule). Christianity (historically understood) is a very exclusive religion. Only Christians get to go to heaven. Given the above, it seems that it would be a safe bet to be a Christian. But what kind? This line of thinking could lead one to the most exclusive and fundamentalist forms of Christianity (narrow is the gate after all). You could argue that God will forgive you for being more strict on yourself than he requires, but not the reverse. So then, get to cutting off your hands and plucking out your eyes. Fundamentalism demands a high price, but they give back control to the believer - if I’m morally pure, I will please God. Christian orthodoxy is absolutely the most exclusive of all - only Christ is worthy - the rest of us ride on his coat-tails.

So, who wants to nominate me for the Antibreviary?

Divine Cooperative Program

2006-06-01T11:52:00.000-04:00

Just got my e-newsletter from the Chrisitian Association for Psychological Studies. It included this Devotional Thought for the month.

From The Biblical Basis of Christian Counseling for People Helpers by Gary R. Collins, (2001) p. 234-235.

“Every counselor knows about word association tests in which people hear a word and are invited to respond with the first thought that comes to mind. When we hear “salt”, most of us respond with “pepper” (or maybe with “light” if we are familiar with Matthew 5:13-14). But how do you think most people would respond to the word holy? The Bible speaks often about our holy God and about holiness, but today the term arouses pictures of dour, joyless, irrelevant unattractive, “holier-than-thou” religion.

Holiness, however, is at the essence of Christian spirituality. The Israelites were instructed to be holy, because God is holy (Leviticus 11:45). Jesus expressed a similar idea when He instructed His followers to “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:47)…These ideals cannot be attained fully in this life, but the serious biblical call to a devout and holy life is at the core of Christian spirituality… The call to holiness is difficult to apply in day-to-day living. Some of our counselees, like some of us, try repeatedly to be “good Christians,” but the failure rate is high and the resulting frustrations are common. Others may try a “let go and let God” approach…also leading to failure and disappointment. In contrast the Bible presents what might be called a “divine cooperative program” in which we take responsibility for becoming more Christlike and we trust continually ! that God will work within us to bring change.

Divine cooperative program? I'd prefer to drown myself (in the waters of my baptism).

Open fire in the comments box.

Stupidist headline ever

2006-05-20T22:16:00.000-04:00

Food cravings linked to brain
Gee. Really? I thought food cravings were controled by the big toe.
Stupid quote to follow:

Researchers say the data cold [sic] be used to understand obesity and eating disorders, as well as treat drug and alcohol addiction.

This is science reporting at its worst.
I think what they are trying to say is that some people receive more reward from food (even the sight of food) than do others. It is indeed interesting that this individual difference is observable via the methodology used in the study. Why wouldn't they just say this.

Close/Closed Baptism?

2006-05-20T14:53:00.000-04:00

What if someone were attending, lets say, an LCMS congregation with a fiancee that was LCMS for life. What if, hypothetically, this person was never baptized because this person was raised in a non-sacramental denomination? What if this person realizes that the sacraments are more important than the non-sacramental denomination make them out to be, but thinks that weekly Communion would become rote (and I must admit that among the nominally RC, I have witnessed what appears from the outside to be thoughtless partaking), and that Baptism is not "necessary." What if this person, seeing that Baptism is probably a good idea, still didn't want to be baptized until ready to join a church. Let's also say this person and significant other were thinking RC because the significant other likes High church, primarily for aesthetic reasons.

Here then is my question, what level of doctrinal agreement do you think is necessary before administering Baptism to an adult, who professes Christ though mired in sundry untruths taught from youth. I am a proponent of Close Communion, but I don't know that I would be a proponent of Close Baptism. Frankly, it never entered my mind until now. In a way, I think I would feel desperate to have this person see that Baptism is fundamental, to submit to this command of our Lord, even if not fully comprehending what it is that is happening.

I'm grateful that my faithful Pastor won't let me forget the power of God in the sacraments. He recently asked those who were being confirmed, "What does the Holy Communion represent?" to which the expected answer was, "NOTHING." The Supper does not signify anything, it is the Body and Blood of our Lord.

Caption Contest

2006-05-19T16:32:00.000-04:00

Check out the Ship of Fools Caption Competition for this picture.

Job Interview

2006-05-19T15:50:00.000-04:00

I had a job interview this week for an Adjunct Professor position.
Since I spent so much time working with interviewers, I didn't think I would be as nervous as I was. Turns out that the program is in most need of someone to be a research coordinator and teach statistics. I downloaded a copy of my transcripts and counted stats courses:

7

...if you count test theory and research design classes which are fundamentally related in my mind.

Internship is making my mind soggy. I had almost forgot that I took an entire course on Expoloratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Probably won't help me get this particular position, though. I don't think students in a management program care one iota about EFA/CFA.

The interview went fairly well, except that when she asked me about my least favorite part of teaching I told the truth. I really didn't like busy-work for my students when I was teaching Intro to Psych.

There was a big push for "active learning" in my training as an instructor. I think active learning is great (think Socratic instruction and other methods of engaging students), but I think that
the tendency is for teachers to get lazy and assign busy work.

Battling Latin

2006-05-18T20:03:00.000-04:00

My Latin calendar presents the following for today:

Nil posse creari de nilo. - Lucretius
(nothing can be created of nothing)

which gives me reason to be thankful for our mighty God and his creatio ex nihilo.

Zen and Psychotherapy

2006-05-12T15:28:00.000-04:00

I attended a continuing education lecture called Zen and Psychotherapy yesterday. The speaker said something very interesting right off the bat. He said that if the teachings of the Buddha are presented as a religion or as a philosophy (as they have been historically done) they will be rejected in the United States, but if they are presented as a psychotherapy, they will be accepted. I think he is absolutely right about this. I think that he is right that Buddhism as a religion offends our civil religion. We at least like to think that we are Christians. And few enjoy a philosophy.

This author wants to bring Zen principles into counseling because he things that they work. He is a pragmatist and he feels that American Buddhism can be practical and avoid both doctrine and intellectual rigor. According to him, Zen works. Why not use it?

Do you think that the American church may have used the same mentality to spread the "teachings of Jesus"? If we present Christ as calling us all sinners, that will offend. If we make him out to be an intellectually serious philosopher, that will satisfy some, but it won't be accessible to the masses. If Jesus makes us feel good and fixes our problems, then we really have something.

Regarding the content of the presentation, I thought that the notion of suffering was interesting. I think that we have become accustomed to living without suffering to such a degree that if a child dies, we rage against Heaven or sue a doctor, because such things offend our sense of justice and security. Now, the Zen doctrine essentially espouses the notion that Suffering is a human given. I think that the Christian understanding of Suffering is that it is a human universal, due to the fall, and not the natural condition of the world. Also, that suffering can have meaning, and not in the Nietzschean sense that it makes you a stronger person. I wouldn't go to the extreme of some Roman Catholic mystics' notion of the Victim Soul - one whose personal suffering can be applied as merit to others. Certainly we are called to bear our crosses (which are by definition unpleasant and not self-chosen) with patience. I like Luther's take on the vine and vinedresser regarding suffering. The vine complains about the pruning and the piling high of manure, but that these are for the vine's overall health in the end.

The 8-fold path out of suffering involves Right View, Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Diligence, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Basically, the internal law. You are able to fulfill the Law through meditation, eventually letting go of your desires. So basically, you can keep the second table of the commandments, if you let go enough (the speaker warned about making it too much of a duty or trying too hard.)

The idea of Right Livelihood is the Buddhist doctrine of vocation, which seems to assert that whatever you do , you should make sure that your lifestyle doesn't inadvertently hurt someone else. So, owning apparel that is made in a sweatshop violates this principle.
Right Mindfulness I thought was interesting because it has to do with being mindful of living on the path of life and being in process. I do think that mindfulness is a healthy practice, but mindfulness of living Coram Deo.

Hubris in Christian Counseling

2006-05-11T20:35:00.000-04:00

What other vocation bears with it such ambiguity? Read this:

"As a counselor, my job is to model Christ to my clients. This seems somewhat obvious because as Christians we are supposed to be constantly formed into the image of Christ...In many practical ways we show our clients what it means to experience God here and now...It is not enough to make clients read Scriptures to show them the realities and characteristics of the Almighty, Loving God. We must bring this to life in the therapy session." Bryan Ray, 2006, The practical face of integration, Journal of Psychology and Christianity, Vol 25, (1), p. 75.

Now, in one sense the fisentenceance is true. But so is, "As an accountant, my job is to model Christ to my clients."

Frankly, I don't think my job is to show my clients "what it means to experience God here and now." I think that my job is to help clients see how they are getting in their own way, to teach them about how human beings learn and unlearn so as to apply it to their own undesirable behavior patterns, to help them think clearly, etc.

Does this strike anyone else as hubris?

It bothers me that some of us assume tbecauseuase we have gone through advanced training that we are in a special "ministry". There is but one ministry, that of Word and Sacrament. It bothers me that some people assume a mantle that has not theirs to take. I have not been called by the Church to do ministry.

There is a lot of talk of late about spiritual disciplines and using religious ritual as a healing practice in counseling. This makes me profoundly nervous.

I'll admit, I've pointed clients back to their Baptism and encouraged them to attend the Table. I've tried to disabuse clients of faulty conceptions of the Faith and of God. I've prayed for clients. If I were in a hospital situation, I may even be willing to absolve in an emergency. My station simply does not bear with it the rights and responsibilities given to Christ's Under-Shepherds by our Lord himself.

Christians in Psychology

2006-05-11T19:08:00.000-04:00

Ryan at WDJD? asks about high school students who "at least claim to be Christians" yet want to study psychology. I've posted on this before.

I visited the Archives of the History of American Psychology again today. My fellow pre-doctoral intern and I had attended a continuing education presentation and we were passing the University, so I thought I'd take her to experience the archives. The thing that always strikes me is that the roots of my field are scientific, not speculative (Freud) which Christian's have been trained to fear. Much of the archives consist of apparatus for psychophysical experiments (reaction-time measurement tools, tools to display colors and sounds in a standardized way, etc.)

Freud was not the Father of Psychology. Wundt was.

Scolding

2006-05-10T18:36:00.000-04:00

My daughter (2) and I were having a discussion about whether or not her cousin is afraid of dogs. She got frustrated at my unwillingness to concede defeat and scolded me thus:

Daddy, you go to your work!!! And say you're sorry!!!

She certainly knows how to make punishment effective.

Wedding Hymn

2006-05-07T15:31:00.000-04:00

I wrote this hymn and sang it at our wedding, accompanied by organ. A good friend of mine, a music major, wrote the tune which he called "SARA" in honor of my wife.

Text: Hosea 2:19-20
"And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD."

Thy people God alive with praise
receive Most Blessed One;
Thy Church arrayed before all days
chosen for Thy Son.

Thou for Thy Bride hath cov'nanted
a brideprice from above;
justice, mercy, righteousness
troth and steadfast love.

Radiant beauty Thou behold
Clo'thed in glorious white;
the work Thou givest is as gold
and silver in Thy sight.

Forgive, forgive our hearts untrue
for gods we fashion cold;
Our troth is as morning dew
but Thine, eternal stone.

Make haste Lord Jesus Husband true
receive thy chosen Bride;
Tremble we for intimacy
one for all of time.

Bond fast this marriage pray I thee
long as this life to live
Grant strength to love most faithfully
the one that thou dost give.

Toward a Lutheran Psychology of Work

2006-05-06T21:40:00.000-04:00

I’ve done some thinking about what Lutheran vocational psychology would look like. I read Mark U. Edward's paper in Dialog called Charistically Lutheran Leanings a while back, and his analysis of Lutheran epistemology has influenced this brief outline. I don't think that these characteristics are necessarily exclusive to a Lutheran understanding of vocational psychology, but I do think that they flow out of the doctrine naturally. Please let me know what you think.

Career is understood in community – parents and others have a real stake and say in a person’s choice of occupation. I think this is more of a warning to parents to study their children and learn how they would fit in the world rather than something to tell kids (because it won’t make them submit to their parents' decisions). I think this is an area for "do not exacerbate your kids."
Career decisions are made based on the best available data – Lutheran theology values the earthly and the real. It would look toward abilities and interests and away from a sense or feeling of the 'right' career path to take. God has and does call people dramatically as in a burning bush, but most of the time God works through means. Abilities, interests and proclivities are indicators of Divine calling.
Cautious – career behavior, from decision making to maintenance would be cautious and deliberate. Prudence is highly valued. The criteria for selecting a career path or moving on from one company to another would require careful deliberation not a reliance on gut instinct or feeling. A Lutheran vocational psychology would not necessarily follow the money either. Prudence involves thinking about the possibilities in the market, not just what is profitable right now. It also involves thinking about others, first spouse and children and then others whom your work will impact and serve. Occupations are a place to serve the neighbor, not a place to serve yourself primarily.
Contextual – This way of looking at work would ask, 'How can I love and serve my neighbor with this set of skills and in this context.' The answer to 'who is my neighbor' is always those who are right here in front of me.
Unworried – A Lutheran vocational psychology would posit that there are many ways to love and serve your neighbor and therefore many acceptable jobs. One need not worry about having 'missed' his or her calling.
Faithful – Opportunities and jobs are viewed as a Divine calling from God, no matter how ordinary the decision making process that led one to a particular role. As such, the worker would be encouraged to be faithful to the position in which one finds oneself. This runs counter to much career counseling which seeks to optimize personal happiness. Rather, struggle is a guarantee. We will have difficulties and crosses to bear in our occupational lives. Instead of packing it up at the first sign of difficulty, Lutheran vocational psychology would counsel patience and fortitude. This does not mean that injustice would have to be accepted if it existed in the organization. People would be encouraged to make whatever changes in the workplace that they could to "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all."
Dutiful and Joyous? – Work life is a solemn responsibility, as we are commanded to work diligently and as unto the Lord himself. It is also a great joy as we are given the opportunity to serve our neighbor as the hands of God himself. There is great comfort in a balanced view of work that neither sees it as a drudgery, the result of the fall, nor sees it as all joy, expecting never to run into obstacles if one is in his or her "true calling."

Cleveland will soon be home to the world's finest gay bathhouse

2006-05-05T08:34:00.000-04:00

Cleveland Scene has the story.
HT: Obscure Store and Reading Room

The Most Important Race

2006-05-04T15:06:00.000-04:00

Tuesday's Primary elections included a huge race that was barely touched by the media.
LUTHER beat POPE.
It was another close one, like their GoogleFight tussle.

HT: Devona at Love and Blunder (via: her mother-in-law).

Death by Lightning Bolt

2006-04-29T17:08:00.000-04:00

Nevermind that this man who was killed by a direct lightning strike was apparantly gay (don't tell Pat Robertson), what really makes me wonder is the last sentence in the report spoken by the neighbor who witnessed the event:

"No man as good as Harold should have to die like that."

Drowing, the Death-of-a-thousand-cuts, being broken on the wheel - these are ways of death to activly avoid. Lightning bolt to the back of the head while cheerfully chatting with a neighbor? Where do I sign up?

HT: Obscure Store and Reading Room

Mailbox

2006-04-25T21:56:00.000-04:00

Is this the result of:
a.) a vandal
b.) a snowplow
c.) a police officer
d.) a fire truck

Ann Coulter on the Gospel

2006-04-25T20:59:00.000-04:00

Ann Coulter's latest includes the Gospel, without undue moralizing:

But we're all rotten sinners, incapable of redemption on our own. The liberal answer to sin is to say: I can never pay this back, so my argument will be I didn't do anything wrong.
...
The Christian answer is: I can never pay this back, but luckily that Christ fellow has already paid my debt.

Best CCM song ever

2006-04-23T20:39:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure why I love this song so much. It is available here in it's entirety for free; Bruce Cockburn doing Mark Heard's Strong Hand of Love. Incidentally, it's about the only CCM I can tolerate (though I am willing to be taught).

Wilken Test

2006-04-18T21:50:00.000-04:00

Commentor John wants to know about the Wilken Test. Please see the explanation given by the Beggers All brethren.

Easter Mass (Roman)

2006-04-16T11:09:00.000-04:00

A downside of having Roman Catholic inlaws is that, because there are more of them that there are of us, invariably we end up having to go to Mass on the high holy days. I'm dying for someone to tell me, "Christ is Risen!" so I can respond, "He is Risen Indeed!" I'm glad that Easter is a season, not just a one-shot deal like in American church.

I wanted to apply the Wilken test to the homily preached by the Deacon, but my daughter and niece both zeroed in on me for attention, so my notes are not the best. It certainly acknowledged the physical resurrection of our Lord Christ. The focus seemed to be on the eyewitnesses and us as the new witnesses to Christ's resurrection. There was a segue into talking about how 6 people had joined the congregation and they did so because those who were already a part of the church were witnesses that it was worth doing. There was a focus on continuing to be the kind of people that others are drawn toward, including being a merciful people, a kind people, etc. He contrasted a view of Easter as a celebration of budding and growing with the words, "New life is through, with and in our God."

He also discussed the return of joy, liturgically noted with the return of Alleluia.

Overall, clear affirmation that Christ is Risen. However, seemed to focus too much on the Church as those with the message rather what the message means.

A final observation: I'm always most struck at the emphasis on the "sacrifice at your hands" when I go to RC Mass.

Living room fellowship

2006-04-13T08:34:00.000-04:00

My wife, daughter and I were invited to dinner at the home of some fellow bloggers whose church our family has recently invaded. The evening consisted of solid conversation, a delicious meal, good wine, and well behaved children. I couldn't have asked for a more pleasant evening. Despite having read their blog forever, I feel I learned a great deal about our hosts. We psychology types can tell you all about the percentage of meaning from conversation that is lost in written text because it is carried in the tone of voice, body language, etc., but there is something that transcends mere mutual understanding that is lost on the internet. Blogging is wonderful in that those of us who care about the same things can connect and dialog over hundreds and thousands of miles, but there's nothing like living-room fellowship.

Coma

2006-04-07T21:08:00.000-04:00

My wife bought me The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe on release day because we were too busy to go see the thing in the theaters. She is a good wife. She knows what a fan I am of the series. I just watched it and it feels like I just came out of a coma. I can't wait to listen to the commentaries, but then again, they will probably suck. Too bad they didn't ask Dr. Veith to do the commentary.

She's also a Narnia virgin. During the sacrifice scene she says, "come on, girls, do something!" And I think but don't say, "No Easter without Good Friday" for I didn't want to ruin the experience.

"This is the best day of my life"

2006-04-04T20:26:00.000-04:00

Read this post. Then read this post. Praise God for his tender mercies.

"For I rejoice that I attribute to God, what others vainly ascribe to feeble man." Christopher Smart

P.S.
I sincerely thank Pr. Petersen for the sacrifice of submitting to testing so that we can get one step closer to understanding autism.

Definition of Sin

2006-04-02T23:38:00.000-04:00

The Westminster Shorter Catechism includes the following question and answer:

Q. 14. What is Sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of the law of God.

I can't seem to find a succinct definition of sin in the Lutheran confessions. My thinking, informed by everyone and his brother, is that sin is both state and trait, both a condition (concupiscence) and an action (trespasses). I've also heard that sin is anything that makes Jesus cry. Is there some nuance that I am missing here?

By the way, the first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism moves me deeply.

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?
Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

You can't argue with that, can you?

Theology of the Cross

2006-03-29T22:07:00.000-05:00

Rob at Love and Blunder lays it down solid in this post. Speaking of theology of the cross, is the book by On Being a Theologian of the Cross by Gerhard Forde a "confessional" work? Any major problems with its presentation? What I've read, I've liked.

Mr. Jefferson Goes to the Middle East

2006-03-29T07:59:00.000-05:00

My Alma Mater Grove City College is hosting a two day conference on Democracy and the Middle East on April 5th and 6th entitled, Mr. Jefferson Goes to the Middle East. The conference is hosted by the Center for Vision and Values and it's executive director Dr. Paul Kengor who authored God and George W. Bush. Check out the reading list which includes links to full text articles by the presenters. Then, clear your schedule.

Reformed Distinctives Scale

2006-03-20T22:18:00.000-05:00

At the CAPS conference, I decided to eschew the road most traveled and attend a session at 7:45 in the morning entitled, Development of a (Presbyterian) Reformed Religiousity Scale. I was the only one in the room besides the presenter until a few minutes after the time to start had elapsed, when a couple of others came in, obviously turned away from the other (full) sessions. The scale was developed to measure change in reformed beliefs over the course of a college career, as people took on the ethos of the school through their cousework and other activities. Turns out that the scale had three factors labeled 1.) Evangelical Belief, 2.) Evangelical practice (piety) and 3.) Reformed Distinctives. However, with the exception of the item "I would describe myself as a Calvinist," I could endorse a number of the items on the Reformed Distinctives subscale. For example, "I believe that Jesus is God and came in the flesh to live among humans." It's amazing to me that this didn't load with Evangelical beliefs subscale. Also, "I belive God transfers the righteousness of Christ to those who put their faith in Him." Interestingly, I found several items on calling that closely mirror those that y'all have helped me create for my dissertation research.

Pastors' Personalities and Congregations' Expectations

2006-03-20T22:10:00.000-05:00

Remember a while back when I asked y'all to help me pilot test a measure of traits desired in a pastor? Well, we finished the paper and presented it at the annual International Conference for the Christian Association for psychological Studies as a poster presentation (all the work, a fraction of the glory). It went pretty well actually. There was a lot of presentations on clinical work and some research on clinical themes, but not a great deal of science. Anyway, here's a short synopsis of what we did.

We had the pastors of two churches fill out personality, vocational interest, job satisfaction and burnout measures.
We had individuals in the congregation tell us about their ideal for a pastor (using the questionnaire that I had y'all fill out) and rate their satisfaction with the pastor by putting a mark on a line somewhere between "My pastor is the best I've ever had" and "My pastor could improve some things"
I crunched the data

It turns out that the church whose pastor better matched the congregation's expectation on vocational interests (averaged across all congregants) experienced less burnout. That congregation also had higher satisfaction scores. Our study gives some preliminary evidence that a congregant's idea of a perfect pastor predicts his or her satisfaction with the actual pastor who stands in front of them every week. So, if I expect my pastor to have Investigative interests and know his Book of Concord like the back of his hand and exegete scripture like a true theologian, I will be more satisfied if that is what I see in the pulpit on Sunday morning. Also, if I expect my pastor to love the arts and to incorporate interpretive dance into the service and he spends his time explaining Greek and Hebrew, I will not be too pleased. Not earth shattering stuff here, but never been researched. Of course, this result was extremely preliminary because of the sample size (respectable in terms of congregants, but there were only two pastors, which is very limited).

One person that we were talking to about the paper suggested that we could offer a service to screen individuals and tell them which church/pastor they would be most happy with. I'm pretty sure I lost a kidney from that comment. It haunts my mind that I may be enamored of Lutheran theology not becuase therein lies the most clear and beautiful presentation of the faith once delivered to the saints, but because of my own personality - namely that I like a bit more formality and mystery on a Sunday morning.

I can send the paper itself to interested parties.

Recall?

2006-03-17T11:58:00.000-05:00

So, how often does something like this happen in the LCMS? It seems as if someone is recalling the Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions version of the Book of Concord. I haven't been around long enough to see this sort of thing before. On the one hand, I'm glad someone is making sure that our confessional documents are properly presented and not misleading. On the other hand, I tend to trust McCain and Veith - two of the editors (the other two I know nothing about).
HT: TheologyGeekBlog

Motto

2006-03-17T08:49:00.000-05:00

nunc est bibendum

now is the time for drinking (Horace)

From my Latin for the Illitarati calendar

Rapture

2006-03-14T08:24:00.000-05:00

Sweet! A firm date has been set for the Rapture. Too bad two different couples I know are getting married on that Saturday. Short honeymoon indeed.

Lutheran Carnival XIX

2006-03-14T08:20:00.000-05:00

Lutheran Carnival XIX is up at Be Strong in the Grace. Very well done.

2006-03-05T09:24:00.000-05:00

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Kletos Sumboulos!

Grapes explode if you put them inside Kletos Sumboulos!
Kletos Sumboulos was invented in China in the eleventh century, but was only used for fireworks, never for weapons.
The canonical hours of the Christian church are matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, Kletos Sumboulos and compline.
While sleeping, fifteen percent of men snore, and ten percent grind their Kletos Sumboulos!
The difference between Kletos Sumboulos and a village is that Kletos Sumboulos does not have a church.
Fish travel in schools, but whales travel in Kletos Sumboulos!
Kletos Sumboulos can last longer without water than a camel can.
A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but Kletos Sumboulos can not.
The ace of spades in a playing card deck symbolizes Kletos Sumboulos.
Kletos Sumboulos was named after Kletos Sumboulos the taxi driver in Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life'.

Now this if fun!

2006-02-28T08:37:00.000-05:00

My long-time friend (and Best Man at my wedding) Nick has a blog called You look stupid because of your FACE which is dedicated to posting pictures of people making strange faces. He and his brother started it off with some classics, and I sent him a photo of my daughter trying to out-do a shark. The only rule: only un-assisted faces - using your fingers to alter your face is cheating.

Cage Stage Lutheran?

2006-02-27T19:09:00.000-05:00

The term Cage Stage has been coined to describe people who have recently accepted the tenets of Reformed theology. According to some, it would be better if such individuals were locked in a cage for a time, because they are dangerous otherwise - gallivanting about, arguing TULIP with any poor wretch with little to no moderation or compassion.

Is there such as thing as a Cage Stage Lutheran? I am one? Further, should I ask my supervisor to kindly commit me for the duration of this malady? Surely the teachings of vocation, two kingdoms and the Theology of the Cross are not applicable to all of my counseling cases? That's statistically improbable! Surely, I did not suggest to a client that seeking out the Lord's Supper was a way to actually be close to Jesus, rather than merely feel close to Him.

I've only been a Lutheran for a couple of years, and much of that time was in a congregation that was heavily influenced by pop evangelicalism. Insofar as I am a confessional Lutheran, it has been because of my contact with UAC bloggers who have shown me the power of Lutheran teaching, taught me the practical side of being a Christian, challenged me, and showed me the way to the good life. I am now attending a church that makes the grade.

So, shall I be locked away lest I get a tattoo of Martin on my chest? After all, I'm making trinkets with Latin phrases to give to unsuspecting therapy clients. There's just something unnatural about this.

It's hard to tell if one is annoying from the inside. It helps to have objective corroboration.

You make the call.

UAC - Unexpected Aardie Commendation

2006-02-27T18:47:00.000-05:00

Pastor Aardvark hath gratiously bestowed upon thy humble servent, the most coveted AARDIE for Simul Justus et Peccator. And there was much rejoicing.

Calling/Vocation Measure

2006-02-25T12:37:00.000-05:00

I need some volunteers to take a short measure of calling.
CLICK HERE
This is for my dissertation research and at this point, I'm just trying to refine the measure by removing items that do not "hang together." The measure is only 13 items long, so it should take less than 5 minutes.
Thanks again to everyone who suggested refinements to the first draft. I welcome additional comments here.

Rings

2006-02-16T15:44:00.000-05:00

Pastor Snyder answers a question about wearing a ring to symbolize your commitment to Christ. He says he wears his seminary ring which features a Chi Rho, I wear this ring. It is a replica of the one that Martin had Cranach make for Katie. My wife and I got them for our fourth anniversary, which was a sacrifice on my wife's part, because she thought it ugly at first. I don't know if the jeweler himself is Lutheran, but he operates out of a heavily Germanic part of Texas (think Shiner Bock). I don't think Martin wore it himself. I don't know if men wore wedding rings at all in that culture. It has a sword on it, so I don't feel effeminate wearing Katie's ring.